Saint Paul calls him "Luke the beloved physician," names him among his fellow workers, and writes from prison at the end of his life that "Luke is the only one with me" — the verse read as the first reading of this feast. From the second century the Church has ascribed to him the third Gospel and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, two volumes addressed to Theophilus that together make up more of the New Testament than the writings of any other author. Luke's Gospel is the one that preserves the Annunciation and the Visitation, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis, the shepherds at the manger, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. It has been called the Gospel of mercy, of the poor, of prayer, and of the Holy Spirit, and its attention to Mary and to the women who followed Jesus is without parallel among the four. The Gospel proclaimed at the feast is the sending of the seventy-two, the Lord's own missionary charge: "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few." Red vestments are worn. His symbol among the four living creatures is the ox, traditionally connected with the Temple sacrifice at which his Gospel opens. A tradition of long standing holds that he painted an image of the Virgin, and he is honored as patron of physicians, surgeons, and artists; October 18 is widely kept as a day of prayer and blessing for those who work in medicine. In the Sunday Lectionary his Gospel is read in Year C.

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October 18

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